Starship Asterisk*

If you look at pictures of the same thing every day, something this different is bound to catch your attention. I enjoy it when an "off" picture is presented if only to watch the various expressions of befuddlement. To me this is much more interesting than picture #1302 of the Orion Nebula.

BDanielMayfield wrote:Why do this? Absolutely nothing rational about space can be learned from this image.

My rational side gets a good work out every day so I enjoy a good irrational APOD nudge once in a while

geckzilla wrote: ...I wanted to see what it would look like with a mean stack instead.

Thanks for doing the comparison, geck.
My intuition leaned toward the median image being the more textured (noisy) one, which turns out to be the case.

Someone has too much time on their hands.

vicmack wrote:Someone has too much time on their hands.

How I wish that was the case for me...

I think this image shows us one thing: The top 100 Hubble images tend to be composed such that the brightest part is near the center of the frame. That probably says more about human perception than it does about the Universe.

jmc wrote:I think this image shows us one thing: The top 100 Hubble images tend to be composed such that the brightest part is near the center of the frame. That probably says more about human perception than it does about the Universe.

Yeah. This APOD had no intent of revealing anything scientific about the Universe other than our interest in it, and like you said, our tendency to centralize the subjects within a frame. Unlike the cosmic latte which used spectra quantitatively, most of the Hubble pictures are not true visual representations, so the color blends are mostly arbitrary, i.e. at least not all calibrated to a standard, common palette.

I had similar thoughts :
1) What the ,,,, someone has too much time to spare
then
2) at least it shows that the Hubble operators can keep most of the targets centred most of the time
but finally I realised the real purpose
3) It has been slipped into the program as an economy measure :-
If/when we stop discussing the point of this picture the program will terminate and our universe will cease.

Apologies to Arthur, for blatent plagiarism of "The Nine Billion Names of God"

I'm with Chris though : tomorrow is another day, , ,

Don't you realize, all of the decimal digits of "pi" are encoded in there somewhere...

vicmack wrote:Someone has too much time on their hands.

You could always take up knitting, you know.

owlice wrote:

vicmack wrote:Someone has too much time on their hands.

You could always take up knitting, you know.

Ha haa, been there done that , are you sitting comfortably :-
a long long time ago, just after the war (shhh dont mention "The War" ) there was not a lot of money for holidays ( nor much else but that is another tale)
I found myself sheltering from a howling NWesterly behind a groin on Silloth beach (NW England) with my Gran, my Mother, Aunt and Sister, all of whom were knitting, seemingly quite contented, Criffell (soon not to be part of the UK) could be seen over the water.
So guess what I began to learn ?
knit one purl one,
roll on tomorrow, this is getting daft, , ,

EDIT , , or pointless, much like the pic ?

Don't mean to be a pill about all this. But, I was wondering about the "copyright" on such an image -- since it is a "derivative work" of non-copyrighted material (HST pics). Do I have my facts wrong? Or my law? Opinions please?

A huge response to a totally stupid image.

MalcolmP wrote:2) at least it shows that the Hubble operators can keep most of the targets centred most of the time
but finally I realised the real purpose

Hubble's operators do this fantastically well. I wondered sometimes that maybe sometimes it isn't aimed quite right but the more I studied it the more I realized that not only does this only ever happen if a bad guide star is used but back when they were still using WFPC2, there was an art to getting that stairstep pattern to align nicely with whatever object was being imaged. Eagle Nebula / Pillars of Creation is one of the best examples of this but I have seen others as well.

RobbyStellarSeed wrote:Don't mean to be a pill about all this. But, I was wondering about the "copyright" on such an image -- since it is a "derivative work" of non-copyrighted material (HST pics). Do I have my facts wrong? Or my law? Opinions please?

Anyone can create a derivative work from material in the public domain and then subsequently apply any license they want to it which is just plain old copyright by default. Well, unless something changed recently that I'm not aware of.

Where are we floating in the cosmic latte blend?

Thanks all, for stimulating and chuckle generating conversation etc.
without wishing to cause offence, but
Copyright ? wha?? who cares ??? , , more too much time on hands m'thinks, lol!
but as long as it contributes to preserving this universe , , ,


I think i may have got a bit of my own mashup going, apart from ArthurC. (ibid)
who did the the short story of a bloke driving (wasnt it always a bloke in them days ?), ignoring all the warnings, stop signs etc including those of the local hicks in the café (diner?), along a road that became a dirt track, then no track,
then the world started to break up as he reached the end of the simulation ?
Azimov ? Dick ?? way before the Matrix and things ?

PS
I'm getting a bit paranoid,
why are there always more Bots than people (real-people?) loged in ?
muwahhhahhh,

MalcolmP wrote:PS
I'm getting a bit paranoid,
why are there always more Bots than people (real-people?) loged in ?
muwahhhahhh,

They are constantly indexing the forum. As it turns out, there are a lot of search engines out there.

There are indeed a surprising number.

I wouldnt want to start another conspiracy (simulations in 'somewhere else') would I ?
but your use of "They" could be construed, , err,

Muuhhhaahaaaa

It's late over here I'll have to go to bed soon, where is my clove of garlic , ,
but I will return,
to see if anyone has remembered that short story for me

hoohaw wrote:A huge response to a totally stupid image.

And thank you for being part of it.

MalcolmP wrote:

owlice wrote:

vicmack wrote:Someone has too much time on their hands.

You could always take up knitting, you know.

So guess what I began to learn ?
knit one purl one,

'Twas my older brother who taught me how to knit.

And I taught my first husband how to embroider. We spent a good bit of time one autumn embroidering holiday ornaments and gifts.

geckzilla wrote:

RobbyStellarSeed wrote:Don't mean to be a pill about all this. But, I was wondering about the "copyright" on such an image -- since it is a "derivative work" of non-copyrighted material (HST pics). Do I have my facts wrong? Or my law? Opinions please?

Anyone can create a derivative work from material in the public domain and then subsequently apply any license they want to it which is just plain old copyright by default. Well, unless something changed recently that I'm not aware of.

Even if there is copyright on the original image(s), a new, derivative work may legally be created with its own copyright, so long as the new work has been modified to a significant enough extent. And in some cases, derivative works don't even need to be modified much, if the new work may be considered a satire. I believe this is true in both the law of the USA and Australia and probably many other countries. Relatively few cases ever seem go to court (the ones where the new work makes a lot of money, typically) and the law is certainly wide open to interpretation on this matter. Probably safer to stick to material in the public domain, or with expired copyright, like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.

HUbble´s Top 100
Very very interesting
I like image 50 , 72, 88, 94 and 98 Beautiful !!

saturno2 wrote:HUbble´s Top 100
Very very interesting
I like image 50 , 72, 88, 94 and 98 Beautiful !!

I think you just pointed out the elephant in the room, saturno2. This APOD is primarily a means to show off "Hubble's Top 100" pictures in a single day! Clever.

owlice wrote: 'Twas my older brother who taught me how to knit.

Gosh ! Interesting, and all these years I have thought I might be unique heheee !
Though I doubt there are many of us

and then I woke up this am. wondering if I should have said "op.cit." instead of "ibid." in post # , oh, no post numbers or am I going blind ?
Amazing the googling one has to do after reading APOD

Anyway, back to topic, who was the APOD Robot of the Day who posted this mashup pic and was he/she pleased with the response that it generated ?

xmetman wrote:What I'm still waiting for are images of NGC1234 (if there is one), or maybe NGC1 - is that the sun?

I think you should aim two digits lower and have a look at NGC 1232 instead. I am linking to this infrared version of the galaxy because I think it shows off the tightly wound spiral better than the visible light ones I have seen.